In order for a baby in the newborn period to continue its healthy development, it is necessary for a full-term baby to take breast milk at least every 3 hours for a time varying according to his weight, and to spend the rest of the time asleep. Various sleep problems that may arise at this stage, malnutrition such as insufficient sucking, and the lack of interaction between the mother and the baby can cause disruptions in the baby's healthy development process and may pave the way for much more serious health problems later in life. Therefore, it is extremely important to realize the problems related to feeding in the neonatal period, which is defined as the adaptation process to the outside world, to have accurate information about the reasons for not breastfeeding in infants, and to provide the balance between sleep and nutrition.
What Causes Sucking Problems in Newborn Baby?
The first month after birth is called the newborn period, and the baby continues its development in the mother's womb in this process. Physical and mental health is directly related to nutrition for people of all age groups. However, the foundation of health integrity in adulthood is shaped by healthy eating habits formed in the first months after birth. Ensuring growth and development, as well as preserving the integrity of physical and mental health, is possible with the acquisition of adequate and balanced nutritional habits in the neonatal period and the following 2-year period. Especially in the first 6 months of life, the only source of nutrition for the baby should be breast milk, and even in the supplementary food period, the entire nutrition program should be shaped around breast milk. In the long term, developmental delay may occur in the baby along with various health problems. In the process of accustoming to the outside world, it is important to establish the sleep-wake balance correctly, to ensure that the baby sleeps healthy and adequately, and to associate the waking periods only with basic needs such as feeding and excretion. Therefore, if the newborn baby is not sucking, It should definitely be evaluated by a pediatrician, whether there is any health problem, an incompatibility due to the incorrect sucking technique, or possible problems with sleep hygiene should be reviewed, and your baby should be supported. Especially in the newborn period, the baby who does not have a healthy and quality sleep pattern cannot show the necessary mental and physical development even when he receives enough breast milk and meets his daily calorie needs in full. For this reason, various problems such as fatigue, sleepiness, and decreased desire to suckle occur in the baby.
What should be done to a non-sucking baby?
Sucking is not only a form of nutrition that affects the physical development of the baby, but also an extremely important interaction tool that directly affects the mental development and strengthens the bond between the mother and the baby. Important health organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) emphasize that babies are fed only with breast milk, especially in the first 6 months after birth, and that effective breastfeeding practices and health integrity are supported in all aspects. Therefore, in case the baby does not take the breast, it is recommended not to use the bottle feeding method directly, but to accustom the baby to the breast with the right interventions. However, there are some important factors that prevent early initiation of breastfeeding and make it difficult to acquire effective sucking habits. The mother's inexperience in breastfeeding, the baby's inability to provide a healthy sleep pattern, cesarean delivery, various health problems leading to insufficient breast milk secretion, nipple cracks, inability to maintain skin-to-skin contact between the mother and the baby in the first hours after birth, which directly affect sucking and breastfeeding behaviors. are extremely important factors. For this reason, the baby who does not breastfeed should be examined in detail in terms of all these factors, and then the interventions to be applied should be planned in line with the existing factors that prevent breastfeeding.
What to Do If Newborn Baby Doesn't Take the Breast?
Sucking reflex in healthy newborns or It develops as of the 32nd gestational week. Therefore, all full-term babies are expected to have a strong urge to suckle. However, in some cases, congenital reflexes cannot develop or develop poorly due to various underlying health problems. During the first examination after birth, various physical and neurological reflex evaluations of the baby such as sucking, swallowing, grasping, grasping, tonic neck, moro, babinski are made, and if there is any neurological disease that prevents sucking, it is mostly noticed at this stage.
Sucking, Although it is a reflex situation for the baby, it is one of the very complex developmental stages that is greatly affected by many factors as well as neurological and physical diseases. The vast majority of newborn babies have difficulty adapting to the natural sucking process and may have a tendency to reject the breast, especially in the first days of life. During this period, the parent should not directly feed the baby with a bottle, but should pay attention to apply the right breastfeeding techniques in order to strengthen the mother-baby bond and support the mental development of the baby.
Increase the skin-to-skin contact
The practice of skin-to-skin contact, also known as kangaroo care It is one of the most useful applications that strengthens the bond between the baby and the baby, and facilitates the baby's adaptation to new processes after birth. Skin-to-skin contact, which is considered a critical component for the initiation of successful breastfeeding, can also be safely preferred for pain and discomfort management. He must take the brown part, which is called the so-called brown part, into his mouth completely and keep it on his tongue. Before attaching the breast, you can stimulate the baby's search reflex by touching the nipple to the lip edges, you can open the mouth and extend the tongue out to grasp the breast much more easily. Since he cannot grasp his head strongly, he swallows a lot of air during sucking and this causes the stomach to fill with gas. Even a very small air bubble in the stomach allows the baby to experience a feeling of fullness and during both sucking and swallowing. It causes strain. For this reason, it is absolutely necessary to take gas breaks during breastfeeding and to make sure that the air in the stomach comes out of the mouth in the form of "burping" with the right gas removal techniques.
All of these are useful attempts to solve the problem of breastfeeding difficulties in newborn babies, but in some cases, professional breastfeeding counseling may be needed. Take care to apply all these techniques correctly so that any problems with sucking do not cause developmental health problems in the baby; In advanced stages, you can get service from the breastfeeding consultancy in the pediatric health and diseases departments of our hospitals located in the relevant units of health institutions.
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